Meeting minutes (May 22nd)

[Frederic Peters <fpeters gnome org>]

Release Team Meeting, 2011-05-22, 18h UTC
=========================================

Attendance
==========

Present:
 Olav Vitters (bkor)
 Frédéric Péters (fredp)
 Matthias Clasen (mclasen)
 Luca Ferretti (elleuca)
 Javier Jardón (jjardon)
 Kjartan Maraas (kmaraas)
 Colin Walters (walters)
 Andre Klapper (andre)

Missing:
 Alejandro Piñeiro Iglesias (API)


Agenda
======

- gnome-infrastructure requirements for modules (core vs apps)
- external dependencies
- Review of feature proposals
- Alignment on a common direction
- tar.xz + pax
- gnome-cc external panels
- Next meeting date

Actions
=======

bkor
 - ask extdeps to ensure they have reliable hosting
 - figure out if there are no difficulties with pax

fredp
 - update the external deps page on live.gnome.org from my email
 - get back to bastien and rodrigo to have their current opinions
   about a public API for settings panels.

elleuca
 - ask design team if something like prey (external third party that
   change the system behavior but is user configurable and not strictly
   related to GNOME) should be managed in GNOME big picture

gnome-infrastructure requirements for modules (core vs apps)
============================================================

Core modules need to use the GNOME infrastructure (tarballs, git,
bugzilla), this is required as we want to ensure we can set GNOME
target field, l10n teams can do their work, etc.

It is noted that we do not require the GNOME infrastructure to be used
primarily, in the potential situation of a totally transparent
mirroring of tarballs/git/bugs.

We want to limit the number of Core modules, some things like
accountsservice could go in external deps.

Applications can go anywhere (but there are benefits for them to use
the GNOME infrastructure).


External dependencies
=====================

Applying the same set of guidelines for all external dependencies is
not optimal, accountsservice is not libpng... Frederic sent an email
to sort external dependencies in three levels, the proposition is ok,
it now needs to be written down on the wiki.

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2011-April/msg00232.html


gnome-cc external panels
========================

Keeping the door open gives everybody else a too easy route around
integration, while we want downstreams to be encouraged to get their
features in GNOME, like it has been discussed for the "Language
Selector" panel currently in Ubuntu.

Still, there are several pending questions, keeping the possibility in
3.2, closed by a -DI_KNOW_THIS_WILL_NOT_EXIST_ANYMORE_IN_SIX_MONTHS,
reserving some slots for ISV ("anti-virus"), and what to do about
about external third parties that change the system behavior but is
user configurable and not strictly related to GNOME (Luca cited
<http://preyproject.com/>).

We should get back to gnome-control-center maintainers (Bastien &
Rodrigo) to be sure of their current position, as well as asking the
design team about their thoughts on justified third party panels.


Review of Feature Proposals
===========================

- Backups
  → Deja Dup as a standalone application is nice, should be suggested to the
    marketing team as a featured application, but the requirements to have
    backups as a core feature of GNOME are not matched by a standalone
    application (should probably get in as a gnome-settings-daemon plugin and
    system settings panel).

    Perhaps Michael won't want, or have the time, to do this; in that case we
    should postpone it to 3.4.

Other feature proposals will be discussed at the next meeting.


tar.xz + pax
============

A GNOME goal will be defined but the switch will be optional (not
forcing a new automake version just for this), Olav will check for
possible issues with PAX, and wait for more feedback.


Next meeting date
=================

Sunday 2011-05-29, 18UTC, tentative, mail to be sent (and we'll only
discuss features)